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Seattle Post-Intelligencer Awards Wine List of the Year
What type of name is that anyhow for a newspaper? The Post-Intelligencer? In these here parts, we call our newspapers simpler things, like The Times, The News, The Post.
Despite the name of the newspaper, all our congratulations to Shawn Mead for putting together the awarded top list. Her restaurant will soon be throwing a giant Muscadet and Oysters dinner, featuring six different vintages of L d'Or Muscadets from the legendary Pierre Luneau. I'm not sure what the legend is, but I know it exists.
Here's what the Post-Intelligencer had to say:
Wine List of the Year: Campagne and Cafe Campagne
A great wine list isn't about how large it is or how many of the glam-vin cult wines it can boast. Nor is it about overeducated cork dorks performing parlor tricks tableside. Rather, it's about how carefully the wines are selected and how well they go with the food on the menu. It's about service and glassware and pricing and how knowledgeable and passionate the staff is. It's about how fresh and innovative and up-to-date the list is and how willing the person writing it is to take risks to provide a unique dining experience for the customer.
This is how I would describe the wine list at the French country restaurant Campagne and its casual little brother, Cafe Campagne, located downstairs: The list at this Pike Place Market restaurant may seem a bit esoteric at first glance, but it is filled with treasures and opportunities to expand your palate. Wine director Shawn Mead says she is "delighted by these peculiar little wines and I want to introduce people to them."
While most restaurants have a phobia for pink wine, Mead offered 13 by the glass last summer delighting those who put their trust in her. Thirty to 40 of the 150 wines on her list can be ordered by the glass. She also offers a bimonthly wine feature that focuses on a specially selected group of wines. This month the feature is five small estate-bottled wines from Champagne. "I look for small producers who are attached to the land and who are going it on their own," she says. "Like us."